Master dentist at work by Gerry Weston

My partner, Paul Thornton, and I were watching our Woodberry B teammates in a EBU lockdown league match (now sadly back in Division 5 and overtaken by Woodberry C team!)

Paul Lamford is declarer in 3NT and this looked straightforward: (In the other room the bidding was the same but North didn’t bid 3N so 3H made +2)

 

Lead 2S taken by the A, and Q diamonds returned (naturally West didn’t want to allow declarer to finesse JS)

 

With clubs and hearts breaking well and the favourable spade position looked to us like 1 or 2 overtricks

The plan seemed to be to make one or two long club tricks and a heart if clubs break 4:2. Normally with that layout of clubs one can duck a club then play off 2 rounds; If don’t break then can establish extra trick with entry with AH or KD

 

So the first surprise is that Paul ran the diamond round to dummy’s K and led AC. What is he doing!? Assume he may be relying instead on heart break and finesse of TD.

He entered hand with KH and led his club, East played Q and Paul let it win. East now faced a difficult led and led a diamond to J and A. OK, Paul now has 8 tricks so surely will duck a heart!

But no; 2^nd surprise. He cashed TD then over to AH and led out the clubs; making contract via 4 club tricks, 3 diamonds and 2 hearts.

 

It seemed a bit lucky and, puzzled, we asked him afterwards what was going on: (If it were anyone else we’d assume he’d mis-clicked)

Since spades were bid and supported he placed West with 5 spades and East 3. Once all followed to TD he knew that East could have at most 7 cards in clubs and hearts. If 3 clubs then his line gives 9 tricks (as it did with the actual layout); If 3 hearts and 4 clubs then he throws East in with 3^rd heart; East makes a club but then has to lead spade into KJ.

 

But one asks, what happens if East has only 2 diamonds with 4 hearts and 4 clubs? But that is where the beauty of this play lies as East has to throw a spade on the diamond (a dentist coup apparently) and then declarer plays off KS (a further dentist coup extracting East’s last spade). Then declarer would play A and another heart and after making 2 heart tricks East would have to lead away from his club honour allowing declarer 2 further club tricks and the contract, via 3 diamonds,,2 hearts and 4 club tricks. Brilliant!

 

A Curious Incident

 "What would you bid on this hand, Watson?" asked Holmes. "The auction begins (1C)-Pass-(Pass)-Dble-(2C)-2S-(Pass) to you. and you have the North hand below."

"I guess I would raise", replied Watson. "You have five-card support and a singleton which is more than you promised with your initial double."

Watson continued: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
Holmes: "To the curious incident of South's One Spade overcall."
Watson; "But South did not overcall One Spade. He passed."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

So, if South had any more than the hand above, he would have overcalled One Spade, and you should pass 2S rather than invite. Strengthen the North hand slightly, making the king of diamonds the ace, and you are worth an invite. East will compete to 3C for sure, but then you might buy it in 3S on the next round.

The defence needed to be accurate. West led the jack of clubs and East played the two on this trick. Good pairs have an agreement that when a singleton appears in dummy in a suit contract, the third hand to play gives suit preference, a small card for the lower suit and a high card for the higher suit. If East had the king of hearts and not the ace of diamonds, he would play the seven of clubs on this trick, preference for hearts. East's two of clubs was preference for diamonds and the switch to the jack of diamonds defeated the contract for a good board for East-West.

False Declaration

 In some areas making a false declaration can be punishable by a fine or worse, but in bridge, the declarer is at liberty to false-card as much as she wants. Jill Shortman found a brilliant false-card on the hand below which worked a treat.

North's 1NT was 12-14 and I was looking forward to a hefty penalty when I saw dummy, having led the ace of spades. We play that this asks partner for reverse attitude, so she will encourage with the queen. West dutifully played the five and Jill followed cunningly with the eight.  I paused for thought. From which holdings would partner play the five?

Well, the one she had, 54 doubleton, but she would also do so from 543, J543, Q5, J54, J53 and J5. From QJ5, she would play the queen, so we can rule that out. It seemed to me that the odds were heavily in favour of continuing spades and I cashed the king, as Q8 doubleton with declarer was certainly possible. There was no longer any defence, and declarer emerged with an overtrick when we managed to crash two of our diamond honours. -380 did not trouble the scorers.

I think it is pretty tough for East to switch to a club, which I need to do to beat the contract (although I could cash the ace of diamonds first, but that would be silly). If North plays the three of spades instead it is all plain sailing. Partner cannot have 854, J843 or J85 as she would play the eight. She can still have Q5 doubleton of course, as well as 54 doubleton or Q85. But only the last of these is it right to continue the suit and I might well find the club switch.

Triple squeeze and dangerous double

 Only six pairs logged in to the Woodberry game today.

It will be difficult to continue to offer this session unless more of you play, so please give it a try.

There were several interesting hands including these two slams:

On board 12, 13 tricks can be made on a triple squeeze. 

Winnie led a heart, and Stefanie must have felt quite optimistic when her 10 was taken by the Ace.

But when Anne ran all of dummy's clubs, discarding all of her major suit cards, South had to throw two diamonds in order to keep the heart king and the spade Ace. Anne was able to cash diamonds to make all 13 tricks.

I was also in the South position against the same contract. The play was similar, but declarer made the mistake of discarding two diamonds on the clubs, and was held to 12 tricks. 

Board 18 was an example of how it can be unwise to double a contract, even if you are confident of defeating it:

The bidding started: 1D-1H-1S.

I then decided to bid 4NT (RKCB). After Keith showed 3 Aces, I bid 5D to ask for the spade queen.

5S denied the queen, so I signed off in 6 spades. 

When Richard doubled, it seemed clear that spades would split badly, so I converted to 6NT.

I took the queen of clubs lead with the king, played a heart to the Ace, and led a diamond. Richard played low and Debbie played the queen on my jack. She then returned a club.

I took the Ace and ran my red suit winners, squeezing South in spades and diamonds. 

Grand Slams by Foxymoron

 I don't think you can win a Grand Slam and not be confident in yourself. Naomi Osaka

The above were the thoughts of the first Japanese girl to win a Grand Slam title in tennis, Naomi Osaka beat the great Serena WIlliams in an ill-tempered match and then went on to win three more grand slams. Not to be outdone, this year at the Masters, the Land of the Rising Sun had its first Grand Slam title with the success of HIdeki Matsuyama. 

A Grand Slam in bridge is always a special event, and the opportunity was there yesterday at the Woodberry Bridge Club for a grand slam to be bid. But would it have made?

Sadly we were North-South on this board, but we might well have replicated the auction that Phill Mattacks and Ken Rolph produced. Certainly it is right to play 6NT in anything other than a World Class field. You don't want to be bidding 6C, and certainly 5C as one pair reached, deserved a very poor score.

I would open 1C as West and the auction might go 1C-1H-1NT(15-17)-2D (any game force)-2H-3C-(forcing) but I think I would just choose 6NT now. I will ask my Precision friends if they could reach 7C here. I originally thought Phil Mattacks line of cashing two top hearts was right, but on reflection it is better, to win the diamond lead, cross to a top club and play a heart to the jack. If that loses you can cash the top hearts and then take the spade finesse. Overall this works if South has the queen of hearts, if the ten of hearts is doubleton, if hearts are 3-2 or if South has the king of spades. Around 88% overall.

How would one play 7C? I think it is right to play a dummy reversal and try to ruff two spades in the East hand. Here the king of spades comes down doubleton so all is plain sailing. Declarer can just draw three rounds of trumps. 

These days we are pretty unequivocal in our spelling - 'plain' means 'ordinary and uncomplicated' and 'plane' means 'flat'. The vagaries of spelling in the 17th century made no such distinction and 'plain' and 'plane' were used interchangeably. It is the 'plain' spelling that is found first in print, in Adam Martindale's A Collection of Letters for Improvement of Husbandry & Trade, 1683:

A token for ship boys, plain-sailing made more plain and short than usually, in three particular methods.

Hamman's Law by Foxymoron

 The multiple American Champion Bob Hamman has won fifteen World Championships including ten Bermuda Bowls, a record that is unlikely to be surpassed. It ranks up there with Nicklaus's 18 majors, which it now seems will stand for all time. He gives his name to Hamman's Law:

If you have a choice of reasonable bids and one of them is 3NT, then bid it.

I followed the rule today, and it worked!

At one table East opened a weak 2D, and North-South ended in 4H which has to lose two clubs and a spade. When declarer misguessed the spades he was off. At my table I decided to follow Hamman's Law, fearing a club lead through my king and it going queen of clubs, ace of clubs, club ruff so I plumped for the nine-trick game. West led the queen of clubs and East won and switched to a diamond.

The contract was secure, but overtricks might come into play, as 4H will make if declarer guesses spades. I won the diamond switch in dummy and led the jack of spades. East thought I was trying to sneak a spade trick and rose with the ace to play a second diamond, but this was fatal. I won in South, and cashed the king of clubs and ran six rounds of hearts. West was squeezed with the nine of clubs in dummy a threat and the ªK7 in South a menace as well. As it happens even making one overtrick was enough for a top. I will follow Bob Hamman's Law again!

Jump Scare by Foxymoron

 The jump scare is a technique in horror films causing the audience to suddenly sit up and take notice. It featured in Friday the Thirteenth, and was notable in Carrie. Drag Me to Hell was criticised for overusing the technique.

Bill Linton, East on the hand below, tried the technique tonight after a horror auction. He had misclicked on 2D instead of 2H at his first turn and was now trying to make amends. He jumped to Six Hearts hoping to scare Andy Clery into passing. But no such luck. Andy had three diamonds and no hearts and gave preference at the seven level. North unsportingly doubled and that was no matchpoints for EW.

What should Six Hearts actually mean? AQxx Ax AKQJxxx none springs to mind. Partner is given a choice between 6S, 6NT, 7S or 7D. It probably has a void, as it has not gone more slowly. Of course, all this is conjecture as the bid cannot exist. What would I bid on the West hand? I think 6NT. I have both black suits stopped and this cannot score badly even if makes an overtrick.

So the difference between bidding 6NT and 7D was all the matchpoints. I think 7D must be wrong, whatever partner has. Your diamond support cannot be worse, 6NT on a spade lead is interesting, You win with the ace, drive out the heart and then guess whether to take the diamond or club finesse. Cash the top clubs first, I think, if you can.

Of course, one cannot bid sensibly on the assumption that partner has misclicked.  It is very hard to recover from bidding 2D on the East hand, particularly as online bridge generally does not allow even "mouse errors" to be corrected. And you certainly cannot tell the table that you have misbid. That would be illegal.